Kathryn Bennetts & Peter Bowman - Recorder Duo

"The recorder-playing throughout the evening displayed musicianship and virtuosity of the highest order along with the adventurous and challenging programming we have learned to expect from this outstanding duo. I came away with a sense of privilege at having been present at the first performance of (Gavin Bryars') Two Lines"Anthony Purnell in The Recorder Magazine, Autumn 2007

Biographies

Kathryn Bennetts and Peter Bowman have performed throughout the UK, in Germany, Norway, Estonia and the United States and have broadcast for TVS, Classic FM, BBC Radio 3, Lyric FM Dublin, Radio Netherlands and Deutschland Radio.

A project to commission new (mainly microtonal) works for recorder culminated in the premiering of 5 new pieces at the Purcell Room in November 2000. Several of these are recorded on the CD Flights of Fancy.

In 1998 "The Quarter Tone Recorder Manual" (Edition Moeck No. 2084) was published. The Quarter Tone Recorder Manual is an introduction to quarter-tonality on the recorder through a series of graded studies and compositions written by Bennetts and Bowman in collaboration with composer Donald Bousted.

Projects

Response to Bach

Commissioning new works for recorder duo

To celebrate their 20 year working partnership Kathryn and Peter embarked on a project to commission new works for recorder duet.

The Concept

To arrange the fifteen Two-part Inventions of J.S. Bach for soprano (descant) and bass recorders and to commission seven composers to write a "Response to Bach" — one new work for each of the seven pairs of inventions. Bach composed his Two-part Inventions as study pieces for his son Wilhelm Friedrich to provide "... a clear method not only of learning to play cleanly in two parts but also with further practice to proceed correctly and well to three obbligato parts and also to acquire at the same time not only good inventions but also the ability to develop them well and above all to cultivate a cantabile style of playing and to gain from the beginning a strong foretaste of composition."

The music for recorder duo, composed by Michael Wolters, is based on a cross-section through Antarctica along the route taken by the explorer Robert Scott and his team. The rising and falling contours of the bed-rock and the ice sheet are transformed into a 35-minute duet composed entirely in eighth-tones for alto and tenor recorders.

Recordings

Flights of Fancy
QTR CD06-03

A Journey Amoung Travellers
QTR CD07-98

In Manus Tuas Domine - John Baldwin

Pertaining to Trees - Geoff Cox

Fantasia 1 Orlando - Gibbons

Fantasia 2 Orlando - Gibbons

Puff Adder - Maud Hodson

Fantasia: Il Lamento - Thomas Morley

Fantasia: La Girandola - Thomas Morley

Al di Là del Buio - Emanuela Ballio

Fantasia 4 - Giovanni Coprario

Tricorder - Mark Bokowiec

A Duo - John Baldwin

Duplicator II - Vítor Rua

A Journey Among Travellers is one of a number of pieces written by Donald Bousted in collaboration with Kathryn Bennetts and Peter Bowman. Their project, which has involved the formulation of quarter-tone fingerings for the recorder has been published in the form of a manual, The Quarter-Tone Recorder Manual (Moeck Nr. 2084) which prepares the advanced player for the performance of structured quarter-tone music.

Click here to hear Kathryn Bennetts and Peter Bowman play an excerpt from "Sonata" from A Journey Among Travellers by Donald Bousted

Click here to hear an excerpt from "In Manuas Tuas Domine" by John Baldwin from Flights of Fancy

Reviews

"The performances have a timeless quality... Wonders on so modest a scale tend to be in short supply these days."The Wire

"Bennetts and Bowman are a truly incredible pair on recorders - the sounds are uncanny, wild and a million miles from your expectations. Bousted's music has great elegance, wit and charm"The Newsletter of the British Harry Partch Society

"Remarkable recorder music ... made such an impression ... really new and significant ... breathtaking, edge of seat atmosphere ... totally gripping and convincing"The American Recorder

"Their intonation is superb and their tone is well-matched. The recording is compelling and ought to hold a place in every contemporary recorder player's collection."The Recorder Magazine

"The sonorities of the tenor and bass transported the listener to a different plane of consciousness." (….)

"The recorder playing throughout the evening displayed musicianship and virtuosity of the highest order along with the adventurous and challenging programming we have learned to expect from this outstanding duo. I came away with a sense of privilege at having been present at the first performance of "Two Lines"… "The Recorder Magazine, Autumn 2007

Publications

Time Pieces

Four volumes for descant and treble recorder of arrangements from medieval to modern. Selected for the Associated Board

News

It is three years since the "Response to Bach" project was launched on 24th October 2006 at a concert held in St Gregory's, the performance centre of the music department at Canterbury Christ Church University which included two world premieres and the first complete performance of our arrangements of Bach's Two-part Inventions.

We have commissioned a total of five new works for the "Response to Bach" project:

On Reflection (2006) for tenor and bass recorders by Roderick Watkins

Intervention (2006) for alto and tenor recorders by Michael Wolters

One Voice in Two Parts (2006) for soprano and bass recorders by Nicola LeFanu

Finchcocks 2008

Our educational project organised in conjunction with Finchcocks musical museum was a huge success. It was a celebration of Arnold Dolmetsch's role in the early music and particularly recorder revival and involved 33 players aged between 7 and 70. Our evening concert with Broadwood Trust prize-winning harpsichordist Paveł Siwczak reflected concert programmes from the early Haslemere Festivals and included Bach's Italian Concerto, the Trio Sonata in B-flat (BWV 1039), the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (BWV 903) plus works by Woodcock, Purcell and fantasias for the lute played by Michael Fields.